Croutons

At the grocery store the other day, picking up a bag of croutons, I thought, this is enough. They want $2.50 for 140g of croutons?! And they are always way too salty, to boot! That is crazy.

So from here on out, I have decided to make my own croutons for salads and soups, from MY OWN day old breads. Everyone always wants today's fresh-out-of-the-oven bread anyway, so this will be a perfect way to re-purpose yesterday's bread.


Pre-heat oven to 300F.

Start by cubing 3-4 slices of bread.

Toss them into a large bowl.

Mix together 3 tablespoons of melted butter, or olive oil; 1 teaspoon of garlic power, and an optional pinch of salt; 1 teaspoon of dried parsley flakes, or herbes de Province, or any combination of whatever herbs you desire!


Pour this mixture over the cubed bread, tossing to distribute evening. Add a little more oil and herbs if needed. Spread the coated bread cubes out on a cookie sheet, in a single layer.

Bake for 15 minutes. Check to be sure they are drying, turn them over and bake for another 15 minutes until dry, crispy, and golden brown. They make the house smell soooo good while baking!

Once cooled, store your croutons in an air-tight container or ziplock bag.

You'll never buy store-bought croutons again after playing around with your own delicious variations of home-made croutons!

Multigrain Raisin Bread

Lately I've been making the previous recipe as it was intended, as a raisin bread. I must say, it is absolutely delicious and the family goes through it pretty quickly!

I have altered the recipe and put in 1 1/4 cups of raisins, so that is more than you see in this photo. It makes quite a difference and really makes this loaf perfect.

It's so nice toasted in the morning with coffee, or for a snack in the afternoon!

Here are the steps to this very easy, completely done in the bread machine, bread (as opposed to my usual way of just using the dough cycle on the bread machine to do the hard work of kneading and the first rise).

But before we continue, I must say, I absolutely love my particular bread machine.  It is a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme® Breadmaker BB-CEC20. Its loaf pan lays horizontal, with two paddles, not like most bread machines which make a vertical, tall and skinny, loaf of bread.

Completely unnatural!

The ingredients...
1 1/4 cups of water
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 cups White Bread Flour
1 1/4 cups Multi-grain Bread Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon bread machine yeast
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups of raisins

Add 1 1/4 cups of water to the pan, then add 2 tablespoons of butter.

 Add 3 tablespoons of honey.

Add 1 1/2 cups of white bread flour, then add the 1 1/3 cups of multi-grain bread flour.

 Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, being careful to distribute it around the outer edge of the pan.

Make a small depression in the middle of the two flour layers. Be sure that the depression does not penetrate through to the water.

Add 1 teaspoon bread machine yeast into the hole.

You want to be sure it does not touch any liquids, and also make sure it stays away from the salt.

 Sprinkle the 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon around the outer edge of the pan.

Put the pan back into the bread machine, set it to run on the "wheat cycle". Sit back and wait.

After kneading is under way, this particular machine beeps in case you want to add something. This is the time to throw in the 1 1/4 cups of raisins.

After 3 hours, 40 minutes (this includes the machine's preheat time), the bread is ready to come out of the pan.

Set it on a cooling rack to cool completely.

Sliced open, here it is.

It didn't turn out too bad considering I completely ignored, or didn't hear, the "ADD" beeps! When I realized what had happened, I pulled the dough out during the first rise and kneaded the raisins in by hand.